Women's Tennis to Take Part in Hokie Fall Invite This Weekend

For the fourth consecutive year, the Liberty Lady Flames tennis squad travels to Blacksburg, Va., to take part in the Hokie Fall Invitational at the Burrows-Burleson Tennis Center. The tournament gets under way at 9 a.m. tomorrow morning and will conclude on Sunday morning.

Joining the Lady Flames this weekend will be the host Virginia Tech Hokies, Pittsburgh, James Madison, VCU, Marshall and Big South rival Radford.

Live stats for the tournament will be available on LibertyFlames.com by clicking on the live stats link on the women's tennis schedule/results page. Live stats are courtesy of the Virginia Tech Athletic Communications office.

Liberty head coach Jeff Maren sees the tournament as a great opportunity for the Lady Flames to continue to improve and achieve their goals. "We want to improve our reaction time, doubles knowledge, serve consistency and shot selection. Of course, we want to win, but achieving small goals along the way will simply make winning a by-product of our journey."

A quartet of doubles teams will get the action started for Liberty on Friday morning. Beginning at 9 a.m. in Flight A, Brittany Yang and Mariely Hassey square off against Karli Timko and Anne Gulsrud of Marshall. Also competing in Flight A will be Valerie Thong and Annisha Domenech versus Marshall's Dana Oppinger and Rachael Morales and Maria Khval and Belen Rivera taking on Rachel Nelson and Sarah Kahn of James Madison.

In Flight B, the senior tandem of Rebekah Jenkins and Cameron Richard are pitted against Jocelyn Lu and Molly Wickman of Pittsburgh. The Lady Flames' Lauren Mabe will be teamed with a player from VCU and will also compete in the Flight B bracket.

The Flight C bracket features four Lady Flames. Yang faces Lu, Mabe will go up against Wickman and Thong challenges Frances Peyton of Virginia Tech. Domenech rounds out play in Flight C for Liberty, playing Pittsburgh's Lolade Ogungbesan.

"Playing in a high caliber tournament like the Hokie Invite will give our team the opportunity to improve their focus, their fearlessness and their belief in themselves and their teammates," commented Maren. "Our goal is to peak for the conference tournament in April, so fall tournaments like this one enable us to take the next step on that ladder of success."